F1: Alonso Wins Wet, Wild European GP

One of the wildest Formula 1 races in recent memory ended with Fernando Alonso taking his third win of the 2007 season after a late-race rainfall benefited him over rival Felipe Massa, who had to settle for second in the European Grand Prix. Mark Webber completed the podium, giving Red Bull its first top-three result of the season.

The race began "normally" enough, with polesitter Kimi Raikkonen retaining his P1 for Ferrari while teammate Massa got the jump on Alonso's McLaren for the second spot. The BMWs of Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica tangled on the first corner, allowing championship points leader Lewis Hamilton to momentarily jump from 10th on the grid to fourth, only to fall back again as, just some 45 seconds after the red lights went out, the skies opened over the Eifel mountains, flooding the Nurburgring and prompting chaos to take over.

First it was leader Raikkonen, who skidded off the pit lane entrance, allowing Massa and Alonso to take control of the race as the Finn was forced to stay another full lap out on dry tires on a wet track. As the entire field pitted, the aftermath of this unscheduled first round of stops presented none other than Spyker rookie Markus Winkelhock, in his first-ever F1 outing aboard the sport's worst car, in the lead! The explanation was simple: a problem had forced the German newcomer to start from the pits, and the Dutch team gambled on putting Winkelhock on wet tires.

Then, mayhem ensued: a pool of water in the end of the front straight caused the Honda of Jenson Button, the McLaren of Hamilton, the Spyker of Adrian Sutil, the Williams of Nico Rosberg and the Toro Rossos of Scott Speed and Tonio Liuzzi to all overshoot the first corner, in a nearly comical sequence. Sutil and Liuzzi's offs were particularly impressive, with the Spyker man spinning at the end of the straight and nearly hitting Raikkonen while still on the track, then narrowly missing Hamilton's stranded car, while Liuzzi spun similarly, almost hitting the Safety Car, which had just been deployed, and then touching a rescue tractor already placed at the gravel trap to attend the beached machines. Of those, only Hamilton was able to rejoin the race, as his car didn't stall, deeming legal the help he received from the marshals.

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The junkyard that Turn 1 became brought out the red flag, interrupting the race, which resumed with all drivers on wet tires behind the Safety Car, with Hamilton being allowed to pass the field and gain back the lap he had lost, in accordance to the new '07 rules. By then the rain had schizophrenically stopped, and McLaren took a bold — and wrong — gamble by putting dry tires on Hamilton's car.

When the race resumed on lap six, Winkelhock led the field for a few hundred feet only, as Massa and Alonso both dove on his inside in Turn 1. While Hamilton struggled to even keep his car on the track, the field completed lap eight with Massa leading Alonso and the two biggest gainers in the original mayhem, the Red Bulls of David Coulthard and Mark Webber. Renault's Heikki Kovalainen was fifth, ahead of Raikkonen, Alex Wurz's Williams, Winkelhock and Honda's Rubens Barrichello.

A great all-Finn scrap for P5 between Kovalainen and Raikkonen was halted when Raikkonen pitted on lap 11 for dry rubber. Massa, Alonso and the other frontrunners did the same on the following lap, with the Brazilian retaining his lead over the Spaniard. The positions after that round of stops had Raikkonen jumping to third, benefiting stopping one lap earlier, with Webber in fourth, then Wurz, Kovalainen, Coulthard and Kubica.

On lap 15, Winkelhock's day of days ended with the Spyker expiring to mechanical problems. Three laps later, Kovalainen made it stick on Wurz for P5, while on lap 19 Heidfeld repeated the mistake he had made at the start on teammate Kubica, this time running into the middle of Ralf Schumacher's Toyota, who ended up trapped in the gravel in the entrance of the main straight. Race stewards said the incident would be investigated after the race.

A period of relative "normality" then followed, but on lap 35 Raikkonen's podium bid and also his race came to an end when the No.6 Ferrari succumbed to mechanical failure, promoting Webber to third. On the 38th lap, Massa and Alonso again pitted simultaneously, both men staying on dry rubber as the rain seemed unlikely to return.

Except that, 12 laps later, it did. Kovalainen was the first to stop, then the full field came in one lap later to switch back to intermediates.

Massa was clearly the biggest loser. His five second-lead over Alonso quickly vanished, with the Spaniard's car behaving significantly better in the wet-again conditions. The Ferrari man resisted fiercely for three laps, but with five to go Alonso finally found a way past the Ferrari, but just barely — the duo made side-by-side contact before the McLaren man finally made it stick.

From then, Alonso drove away to finish 8.1sec ahead of the Brazilian. A similar scenario befell Webber and Wurz, but despite a spirited charge from the Austrian, the Australian resisted to give Red Bull its second-ever podium, crossing the finish line 0.2sec ahead of the Williams. Crowning the best race of Red Bull's history, Coulthard finished fifth, in front of Heidfeld, Kubica and Kovalainen. Hamilton finished ninth, almost managing to salvage a point from his wacky race, which put an end to a nine-race podium finish streak.

In parc ferme, Alonso and Massa had a brief argument as the Spaniard pointed to the tire marks left by the Ferrari's wheel on the McLaren's sidepod. The heightening of the rivalry between the pair is also reflected in the points standings, where Alonso now trails Hamilton by just two points, 70-68, with Massa another nine points further back. Raikkonen was the day's biggest loser, being left stalled at 52.

The 2007 Formula 1 season resumes in two weeks' time with the Hungarian GP.